Who decides recruiting stars and what is the criteria?

Submitted by michman79 on
This is something I've always wondered. Is there a board room of people ( like super smart former coach football people) at Rivals and Scout who have significant discussions while breaking down high school tape? Or, is it a bunch of local coaches feeding hype to regional managers for the recruiting services...who then pass the game of telephone on to some proverbial monkey behind a computer. Also, is it just stats or are intangibles such as toughness and character taken into account? The reason I bring this up is, according to recruiting services, we have been dominating Nebraska, PSU, MSU, and the rest of the BIG in recruiting for several years while getting dominated on the field (PSU down several scholarships seems unfathomable). Under Hoke, our recruiting classes have generated a ton of hype, but we aren't winning big games and can't win on the road. Our classes under RR were also rated decently if I remember correctly. So my question is...do these services work? Or do they just give us something to read in the offseason? Are coaches focusing too much on stars and not enough on intangibles like toughness and resolve in the face of adversity? I'm sure MSU doesn't mind that we have out recruited them for the last several years. I'm sure they are just fine beating us on the field where it matters.

gwkrlghl

November 9th, 2013 at 9:29 PM ^

Richrod's classes were so-so and decimated by transfers. They are the upperclassmen.

Hoke's classes are great and are sophmores at best.

And it's some kind of team of reviewers at those services. It's going to be hard to quantify 'toughness' and I am certain character is not a factor. "SUCH A NICE YOUNG MAN. FIVE STARS. "

ILwolverine

November 9th, 2013 at 9:30 PM ^

Hoke's two full classes have a lot of highly rated players, but they are all sophomores/freshman.  Have to give it time, and repeatedly bring in classes like that

turd ferguson

November 9th, 2013 at 9:44 PM ^

I really think the increased coverage and following of recruiting is giving people false hopes about what guys do as underclassmen.  The fact that we're paying attention to what high school kids are doing now doesn't mean that they're suddenly much better prepared to contribute immediately.  

Our guys will most likely be really good... in a couple of years.  I know that's shitty, but I've been saying it since last season and still believe it's true.  It's just really hard for 19- and 20-year-olds who are getting their first college playing time (and college life experience) to compete with 22- and 23-year olds who have grown physically, matured, been coached up, and learned to play together for the past several years.

If there's an upside to our youth, it's that we'll be insanely experienced in a couple of years.  We won't be the usual type of experienced - lots of juniors and seniors who are stepping into increased roles.  We'll be experienced in that we'll have juniors and seniors who are multi-year starters.  I'm looking forward to that.

gwkrlghl

November 9th, 2013 at 9:59 PM ^

What I normally say when someone says "Put in X! He was a 5*!" you have to consider that a lot of the guys starting now would basically be equivalent to 6*, 7*, and 8* as they are another level past what makes someone a top level recruit in high school. Being a 4/5* doesn't mean you're ready to play

B1G_Fan

November 9th, 2013 at 11:36 PM ^

 actually thats exactly what being a 5 star recruit means. You should be ready to play. Some positions are harder to play as a freshman/ RS freshman but this goes beyond youth. If it was youth you'ld see inconsistent play but we're very consistent week in and week out. We're getting consistently worse.

Magnus

November 9th, 2013 at 9:32 PM ^

Yes, the services work. High recruiting rankings generally translate to a better chance of NFL draftability, although there are always some guys who underperform or overperform.

The stars are determined by groups of scouts. Rivals, for example, has analysts for each part of the country who suggest ratings for players in their area. Then final decisions are made by the group.

I Like Burgers

November 9th, 2013 at 9:33 PM ^

Won't say for which service, but I've been in the rooms when they are deciding these things.  They look at actual game film from lots of sources -- Youtube, Hudl, XOS, whatever.  Then they pick out skills and traits and things like that are pros and cons, give the guys a score, put them in a list with guys at their position, and then merge the lists together.  Then they tweak the lists slightly by "this guy should be higher" or "he's better than this guy."

Outside of the top top players, the score difference between someone that's say #40 overall and #120 is only 1-2 points.  And the difference between #40 and #60 might be like a difference of 0.2

Its why you'll see those lists with like 400 4-star players.  They're all roughly the same.

michman79

November 9th, 2013 at 9:33 PM ^

You mean first 3 classes right?
Gordon- Football character isn't about being nice FYI. It's being tough and responding to adversity with strength and resolve.

LSAClassOf2000

November 9th, 2013 at 9:35 PM ^

I did this diary several months ago, so if it will help discussion, here are our average star ratings from 2002-2013:

YEAR 5 STARS 4 STARS  3 STARS 2 STARS MICH. AVG. RATING
2002 1 10 8 0 3.63
2003 2 11 3 1 3.82
2004 1 12 8 1 3.59
2005 1 10 11 1 3.48
2006 2 9 7 1 3.63
2007 2 5 12 1 3.40
2008 0 17 6 1 3.67
2009 1 13 6 2 3.59
2010 0 6 20 1 3.19
2011 0 6 13 1 3.25
2012 2 10 13 0 3.56
2013 1 16 9 1 3.63

 

MonkeyMan

November 9th, 2013 at 9:47 PM ^

All those 5 star athletes have to work together as a team- thats where bad coaching can turn them all into 1 star players. Football isn't wrestling, its more like synchronized swimming. I hold that a successful team is 1/3 recruiting, 1/3rd training and practrice and 1/3 gameday play calling and decisions.

DealerCamel

November 9th, 2013 at 10:45 PM ^

You can have great athletes and fancy play calls, but unless you've trained them well to perform as a cohesive unit, you won't get very far.  That's how a team like Appalachian State can beat a team that later beats a Tim Tebow-led Florida.

Nosce Te Ipsum

November 10th, 2013 at 12:43 PM ^

I know. I suppose calling what the poster writes as stupid could be seen as calling the poster stupid but it doesn't matter. What does is that our coaches have moobs. Moobs, man. Moobs. 

clarkiefromcanada

November 9th, 2013 at 9:50 PM ^

I'm sure MSU doesn't mind that we have out recruited them for the last several years. I'm sure they are just fine beating us on the field where it matters.

Like I'm not pissed off enough about the loss, OP, that I have to read this sort of garbage. If Sparty was so happy about this then why do they offer the Michigan players? I'm sure they didn't really want Shane Morris, Mario Ojemudia, Kyle Bosch etc. etc.

This may not be the most ridiculous thread of the year but you are for sure top 5.

MakGoBlue21

November 9th, 2013 at 9:52 PM ^

but even if you don't check out the offer list of the guys Hoke has brought in/recruited. Almost all of these kids have offers from major B10 and national schools. It's not like Michigan is the only one interested in them.

michman79

November 9th, 2013 at 9:56 PM ^

Top 5 most ridiculous thread? Please tell me your attempting sarcasm. Trying to figure out why a team who consistently out performs another in recruiting yet loses on the field seems like a legitimate question to me. What am I missing?

michman79

November 9th, 2013 at 10:36 PM ^

wasn't implicating recruits aren't talented or attacking them personally. Was just implying that coaching may be an issue. If you want do die on this mountain go ahead. Just took another angle at it and it appears to have ruffled your feathers. So Hoke's recruits are young and that explains everything. Got it. No other possibilities exist.

snarling wolverine

November 9th, 2013 at 10:07 PM ^

I'm sure MSU doesn't mind that we have out recruited them for the last several years. I'm sure they are just fine beating us on the field where it matters.

Keep in mind, we're not playing our freshmen against their freshmen. It's our team (which is very young overall) against their team, which has a lot of upperclassmen. MSU's entire starting defense is redshirt sophomores or older - they're all in at least their third year in the program. We can't say the same. Our 2010 class is down to nine guys from the original 27. The attrition in that class has really hurt.

michman79

November 9th, 2013 at 10:19 PM ^

I quit. Our program is awesome and I am happy that we haven't won a big ten championship in a decade. I'm happy that MSU is dominating us with 5 of 7, I'm happy that we have only beat OSU once when they were in a year of flux, I'm happy we lost to PSU with a freshman QB down 25 recruits, I'm happy we were able to beat Akron with a last second goal line stand, happy we came back to sneak by UConn, happy we were 8-5 last year and will be again this year (if we're lucky). Oh, and I forgot to mention I'm happy that Nebraska beat us today down 4 starters including their QB.

Go ahead and chalk this up to me being a troll because you can't handle a voice of dissidence amongst the herd.

Mr. Carson

November 9th, 2013 at 10:28 PM ^

Uh nobody is happy with any of those things. What does that have to do with you making idiotic statements about recruiting?

The problem is not your question. The problem is that this thread is just a thinly-veiled snowflake about poor player development and the inadequacies of our staff.

snarling wolverine

November 9th, 2013 at 10:51 PM ^

I'm sorry if you're not getting the response you're clearly fishing for, but there is currently no reason to believe that recruiting and talent evaluation are problems for the staff right now.  Their classes just haven't been on campus that long.  The upperclasses, which they didn't recruit, are far smaller than they should be - there are only 24 upperclassmen on scholarship right now.  

This is not to say that there are zero coaching issues with the staff, but inexperience is certainly a handicap for the team.

michman79

November 9th, 2013 at 11:15 PM ^

I feel like Will Smith at the end of "I am Legend" where the zombies keep running into the glass mindlessly and he's like, "wtf? Don't you get it?". Everyone is attacking this thread as an attack on recruiting and talent evaluation. It's not!

The point is recruiting has been good..if not great. The question is the development of the recruits. By gaining clarification that recruiting services are in fact doing a pretty solid job of identifying talent, we can therefor remove the talent excuse and focus our negative energy towards the coaching staff.